J is for Jane's Journal

The weather for the last few days has given us a real feel of mid summer rather than mid spring. On Friday the temperatures in the south were hotter than in Spain. In my sheltered garden the wall thermometer hit the dizzy heights of 26c. This wonderful heat is really being enjoyed by the trees in my neck of the woods, I snapped these photos as I walked to get some shopping.

 The horse chestnut is flowering...getting ready to make conkers....

and the cherry blossom is looking delightful

For the dictionary challenge over at the Craft Barn this fortnight the letter is J.......with a dragonfly! Yes it made me stop to think too. I  wanted to combine it with some fun new May challenges so I had a little think about what to make. You would be amazed what goes on in my head and how my projects come into being. I made my dragonfly first by stamping and embossing my Visible Image dragonfly and adding glossy accents to the wings. I then fussy cut it out

I thumbed through my vintage dictionary and from the J pages the word " Journal" jumped out at me. As I am making art journal pages it seemed the perfect word to use.

 I smiled as I read the definition and thought that journal also seems quite an old fashioned word. I imagine Victorian ladies writing in their journal using fountain pens (I still use one!).

My blog is called Jane's Journal and often wonder if one day my descendants will still be able to access it to see what I got up to?  Wouldn't it have been amazing if our ancestors had been able to blog! This also gave me the idea to use one of my vintage family photos as the focal image for my project.

This is my great grandmother Florence Emma Alice...I love this photo, she looks so elegant.

 she was born in 1882 and sadly died at the age of 34, within months of my great grandfather's death. They apparently shared a very deep love for one another. I obviously never knew Florence but my own Nan had been told that her Mother died of a broken heart.



















I wanted to create a very vintage appearance for my journal page. I added the rest of the J page from my dictionary.

I added stencilling using texture paste and archival ink. I built up my layers and textures using distress inks and sprays. I wanted to achieve a very Victorian look.

 I also added some purple mica spray.

I had some snippets of vintage looking paper left over from some cards which worked perfectly as a collage to mount my photo on to. I also die cut some floral frames and elements and cut a snippet of lace to add to the vintage feel.

It was then time to put on my creative hat and assemble my journal page.







Here is my finished journal page.

and one last arty shot

I really think the dragonfly adds to it....it reminds me of the insects that were preserved by collectors years ago and often kept in glass domes or glass cabinets alongside butterflies and other insects.

I would like to enter my Journal page into the following challenges;

The Craft Barn dictionary challenge J is for journal
Anything but Cute celebrate my style I love making art journal pages and this one is even more personal using my Great Grandmothers photo.
Pixie's Snippets playground #228
The Ribbon Girl any image goes
Crafty Calendar things with wings
Happy Little stampers Mixed media, shine my stamped and embossed dragonfly has glossy accent
wings and my mica spray also gives some shine.
Pile it on 3/3 garden creatures
Rhedd's creative challenge altered art/mixed media
The artistic stamper 3/3 Collage
Our creative corner 2/3 hit the books  I have used my vintage dictionary pages
We love to create 1/2 anything mixed media

The weather today is glorious and it's a Daisy and Co day for us...the beach and a BBQ beckon...woop woop!
Enjoy your Sunday.

Thanks for dropping by and for taking the time to leave your kind comments,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

There are always flowers

I really adore flowers, they give me endless inspiration. Even in my tiny back garden I am able to grow lots and I am currently working on getting some summer bedding plants into my pots. I love that my darling granddaughter Daisy Jane is even named after a flower.

On a recent visit to Daisy and Co we went out for a walk and we always try to find a swing park at some point as Daisy adores swings and slides. I shared a joyful photo of her in a recent post coming down the slide and here are some more

whhhhheeeeeeeee.....down she goes.........

 How much joy can a simple slide bring to a small person

 As we left the park I noticed the daisies growing in the grass
 Daisy also has sweet new white daisy shoes (very similar to her first blue ones). Her Mummy and Daddy noticed that she has the exact colours in the cardi below which I knitted her.

Here is Daisy amongst the daisies

I had some more journal play in my studio yesterday after work and I decided to make some pages with daisies including her sweet Daisy shoes. I found this great quote to work with

 I wanted to play with my PA acrylics as they were the perfect colours in Daisy's cardigan

 I decided to create a brayered background adding one colour at a time

 I love the textures here

 For the daisies I used my cheery lynn die cuts and added some DIs for colour to the centres

 I won these fun Little Claire Designs stamps a while ago and decided to use them as a daisy rather than a sunflower

I pressed them into my paint and added some random stamping in pink

 and blue

I then had a think about my design and came up with this to start with...I wanted to add something more but I did not want to detract away from the background too much. I also wanted to try to link the daisies in some way. I had a light bulb moment as I remembered the stitching on her shoes...they are like doodles making a daisy chain.

So yes I had the idea to try my hand at doodling....if you have not seen this talented lady in blog land check her out here...Joanne Fink. She adds so many creative doodles to her work. I have been admiring her work for a while and I decided it was time to jump in feet first.

Now it was a brave idea of mine as I knew that if it went badly I could end up spoiling my lovely background. I also don't have the correct pens, I just used a thin black needle pen and a white cheap gel pen. But goodness me it was such fun......I spent ages doodling around my pages in black and white ink.

and this is my finished work.

I had SUCH fun doodling....I think this could become a new obsession. I have lots to learn but for a first attempt I was pleased. You can see I even had a go at hand doodling a flower on the left hand page

and a couple more close ups.

The other advantage with doodling is that I can add to my designs in the evening when we sit down.....all I need is a pen or two. I am checking out some pens. I think that Sakura look the best but if anyone else has used doodling on their artwork I would love to hear your thoughts. The only trouble now is that my head is buzzing with ideas....creativity is so infectious isn't it...and to think this started with a photo of Daisy amongst the daisies in her new shoes.

I would like to enter my journal pages into the following challenges;

Little Claire's outdoors
Paperartsy Topic 9 words I love using words in my art and as Darcy says in her introductory video there are so many ways adding them. She also showed some doodling and journal embellishments too.
Anything but cute vintage garden This is a new challenge run by blogging friend Pamellia, do pop on over and support her in her new venture.
Country View crafts simply scenic
Art with heart mixed media mahem
Love to create anything goes/mixed media
Our Creative Corner April showers bring May flowers
The Artistic stamper journalling your heart out
Frilly and Funkie happy, happy, happy I think my journal pages show how I am happy whenever I spend time with my darling granddaughter
Simon Says stamp Monday X,y,z this prompt made me think of school days and writing practice, we used have classes at primary school where we used to practice the shapes of letters and also make doodles...hence my pages today.

I am also going to link up with my friend Brenda with her visual journal. This is not a challenge, it's just for fun and inspiration. Please do pop over to see what latest journal pages people are making. The link is here #21

Enjoy your Thursday, the sun is up here and remember there are always flowers for everyone who wants to see them......just look around.... or in my case...they are at Daisy's feet.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Easter playtime.

There are so many things going on here that I just had to nip back and share..........
I have been learning to crochet....

please don't laugh...I know that compared to my talented blogging friends it is very basic but hey I have started my first granny square....

and my Darling hubby has made his first ever cake.......a birthday cake for me.........

 He has never baked a cake before and he even piped the top with buttercream, how brilliant is this? It's lemon, my favourite. We will be eating this after my birthday lunch with the family tomorrow (it was my birthday on Wednesday). M you are so kind to me........

and I even had time to play in my creative journal............I was so inspired by the colours of my crochet and my fab lemon cake that I reached for these acrylics to create this vibrant background. I wanted to enter a couple of challenges too.

Over at PaperArtsy the theme is using Grunge paste. I added some colour to mine and pushed it through my stencils.

I added yellow through a burlap stencil...see later photo

 I also added some Archival inks

I have been itching to play with my new Visible Image stamps so off I went

and these are my finished pages

Here are some close ups....more Grunge paste

I also used the Bronte verse  text stamp

and some more Grunge paste, it gives such great texture. I added some die cut leaves.

and one final shot

I would like to enter my Journal pages into the following fun challenges, thanks!

PaperArtsy Grunge paste #6 I was inspired by Kate's use of colouring the paste and pressing it through a stencil on her textured bloom post. 

Our Creative Corner colour your world, spring

Creative Inspirations anything goes

Not just cards anything goes
Crafting from the heart anything goes
The Artistic stamper flora and fauna
Simon Says Stamp work it Wednesday
That Craft Place easter/spring

I will also be linking up with my friend Brenda on her Visual journey #14 who is enjoying creating pages in her journal....just sitting down and playing like I did here.

This is a blog party to share Visual Journal inspiration with each other.
To take part -
-please leave a link in your blog post to the post on Bumblebees and Butterflies.
- try to leave a comment on other participants blogs where their entry number ends with the same number as yours
-please add the link up code to your blog post so that we each share all particpants entries with everyone.

1. Experiments in Paper: Vintage Embroidery Sampler

2. Avril B

3. Jane's Journal: Easter playtime.

Add your link

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Have a bright and cheerful evening everyone and I am back tomorrow with an Easter post. Thanks so much for visiting. We will be watching the final of "The Voice" tonight....

Back very soon,

Jane x